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  • From: list@ginda.us
  • To: North American Fruit Explorers <nafex@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: [NAFEX] In praise of Raspberries
  • Date: Sat, 15 Jul 2006 09:55:42 -0400

To elaborate on my post of last night: As a space-constrained suburban gardener, the raspberry hedge has been by far my most cost- effective fruit. Those of you who live out in the country and have lots of land may have different economies of scale, but I would recommend raspberries as the first and most valuable crop for anyone in my situation.

Raspberries are cheap to buy, and low maintenance. I paid for 4 plants and several bags of soil and compost (to replace the rocks in my ground and enrich the soil) the year I planted them. In their third year, when they got full sized, I bought 6 metal fence-posts and some string, and made a string "fence" to keep the canes contained.

Annual inputs so far have been a heavy mulch of shredded leaves each fall (free, because I have to dispose of my leaves somewhere, and the lawnmower is the easiest way to get them off the grass) and a generous dollop of lawn fertilizer (I use corn gluten) in the spring - also free, since my lawn doesn't require an even number of bags, and it's a nuisance to store it. Labor involved is limited to pruning heavily twice a year and pruning out damaged canes when I notice them.

Rewards have been many more raspberries than I would ever buy in those tiny containers in the shop. I've never actually gotten enough from my 4 plants to store or process, but the four of us and our guests eat a lot of raspberries every summer over a long season. I grow Fall Red, which gives a large crop throughout the month of July, peters out in August, and then gives a larger but more spread-out crop from early September until the hard frosts, sometime in October. Basically, the only reason raspberries are expensive is that they don't ship well. It's a cheap local crop.

In contrast, my blueberries require substantial fencing to keep out their numerous admirers. I've spent more fencing them than I would have paid for all their cumulative crop over the past 8 years. Lots of bird netting draped to the ground was cheap and reasonably effective against birds, but it worked as a snare and I had to remove numerous dead birds and chipmunks every summer. I didn't like killing the animals, and I really didn't like handling their partially decomposed corpses. Also, I need something more substantial to keep the rabbits from eating all the buds over the winter. I now have a foot of hardware cloth at the ground and two feet of chicken wire, and I toss bird netting over the top only when the fruit it ripe. It works well. The blueberries have been slow to bear, but perhaps will eventually produce enough fruit to be economically worth while.

The apples are very shy about blooming in less-than-full sun, and require sprays and other fussing. The currants are easy, and produce more than I can eat, but we have a limited appetite for them. The apricot shows promise, but is still young and hasn't proved itself. The grapes were VERY slow to bear, and require a trellis. They may also eventually prove themselves, but I've had them 7 years, and this is the first year they set fruit. The strawberries are all eaten by critters - I do get a few of the alpines, but that's about it. Maybe if they got the attention the blueberries get they would do better. Other experiments mostly haven't fruited.

Off to a breakfast of fresh berries in milk. :)

Ginda



On Jul 14, 2006, at 9:10 PM, list@ginda.us wrote:

Today there were more raspberries in my patch than my daughter and I
together could eat! I'm pretty sure that's a first for me. The
raspberries grow in a row about 2' wide and 14' long. I vigorously
restrict them to their alloted space. They don't get full sun for
much of the day. But it's been a good year for raspberries, and the
early crop is near peak, and I hadn't really picked them yesterday or
the day before.

Tomorrow morning I'll see how much more I can eat. :) I may even
pick the blueberries into a bowl and get some idea of the volume my
row of blueberries is producing.

Ginda





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